BAKU, Azerbaijan, Dec. 25
By Leman Zeynalova – Trend:
Russia’s LUKOIL company intends to complete the appraisal of reserves of Iraq’s Eridu field (Block 10) and then further study the remaining part of the block, the company’s Chief Executive Vagit Alekperov said, Trend reports.
Block 10, with an area of 5,800 square kilometers, is located in the southern part of Iraq, 150 kilometers west of the town of Basra and 120 kilometers away from the West Qurna 2 field. LUKOIL holds 60 percent stake in the project (operator), INPEX CORPORATION (Japan) holds 40 percent stake. The contract owner from the Iraqi party is the state-owned Thiqar Oil Company.
He told Kommersant newspaper that presently, it is difficult to tell the concrete production volume, since the company will conduct FEED (front end engineering and design) not on the basis of the field’s potential, but based on the figures to be provided by the Iraqi government.
Therefore, it is highly likely that the work on this field will be carried out in stages, said Alekperov.
“We have huge work experience on Iraq’s territory, we well know the strata,” he added.
LUKOIL is one of the largest publicly traded, vertically integrated oil and gas companies in the world accounting for more than 2 percent of the world's oil production and around 1 percent of the proved hydrocarbon reserves.
Iraq plays a central role in a LUKOIL’s strategy of increasing oil production abroad. In 2010 LUKOIL became an operator of one the world’s largest oilfields – West Qurna 2.
In 2009, LUKOIL won the tender for the West Qurna 2 development project. Its contract is for a period of 25 years with a target of achieving plateau production of 800,000 bpd at the end of 2024.
The West Qurna 2 project achieved first oil production in March 2014 and today the field has added the largest incremental production growth in Iraq of 400,000 bpd, and today is producing at a rate of 385,000 bpd from the Mishrif formation, which represents 9 percent of the total Iraqi production of crude and 12 percent of Iraq’s exports.
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